Raccoon watching; unexpected surprise

“Mom come quickly,” said my daughter standing by the door.

Raccoon_2
Raccoon cleaning its paw

 

Here’s what we saw

Raccoon_3
Raccoon cleaning its paw

 

We went outside for a closer look. I think this raccoon was sick.

  1. This raccoon was stumbling.
  2. It’s behavior was similar to rabid animals that I’ve observed.
  3. A car came down in our community and the raccoon didn’t move. The car had to move around it or it would have run it over.

We watched it for a while and then eventually went back inside. A few hours later we heard a loud bang. This raccoon was on our neighbors property. He shot him with his shotgun. It was a clean shot and the raccoon died instantly. My daughter was upset, but I reminded her that this raccoon was sick and it didn’t have long to live.

Adventures in Gardening: Eliminate harmful garden pests with homemade neem Spray

I forgot to post the recipe I use for my Neem garden spray. I use my spray in the early morning or after 6:00 p.m. by that time most of the beneficial insects have stopped foraging and I don’t have to worry about dousing them with my spray. It’s a natural way to gradually remove unwanted pests from your garden.

 

All Natural Neem Spray

2 tbsp Neem Oil
2 tbsp liquid/grated castille soap
2 gallons of water

Fruit bearing Neem tree

Neem Tree bearing fruit

How to Blend Neem

Neem is extremely hydrophobic (very hard to mix with water). You could use a high powered blender, but I’ve found that the neem/water blend will eventually separate. You need to kick it up a notch.

Off topic, but I do mix my water based essential oil blends in my Vitamix before adding to a spray bottle.

You’ll need some chemical assistance, and that’s where using real soap (not detergent) is effective. I use homemade castille soap, however if you aren’t interested in making your own, you can purchase it online or at health food stores.
Real soap works by breaking up oily masses and polarizing the droplets so they don’t cling together. Which makes it perfect for this formula. Another benefit to soap is that the fatty acids found within soap tear away the insects natural coating. This causes them to dehydrate.

 

How does Neem oil work?

Neem oil doesn’t kill garden pests outright. The insect has to eat the plant treated with neem. After it’s consumed the plant material then the properties found within neem starts to take effect.

Neem works through hormonal disruption. If you do one treatment you won’t see results, it takes time for the insect to stop laying eggs and for their digestive system to break down. It is not a broad spectrum poison, however it is extremely effective. I apply my neem solution every four days for a total of six applications. Afterwards I will drop down to once every seven days or after it rains.

Dyna-Grow Neem Oil

The brand of neem oil that I use is Dyna-Grow, I like it a lot and have been using this brand for seven years.

My sprayer of choice, it my recently purchased Stanley Lawn & Garden sprayer. I wrote about my Stanley sprayer a few weeks ago. It’s made of steel. I love it, before I’d been using my trusty plastic sprayer that held one gallon. We have about an acre of garden, spraying all the plants takes one or (sometimes two) refills.

 

Knitting: Work in Progress; Cowl

I’m still knitting that “checkered cowl”. I haven’t had too much time to knit, but I try to knit a few rows weekly.

Knitting: Checkered cowl I'm making, no pattern used.
Knitting: Checkered cowl I’m making, no pattern used.

 

The stitch pattern is stockinette and seed stitch.  It’s simple, but I really like how this knitted cowl looks. If you look closely, you’ll see metal rings. That lets me know that I need to swap my stitch pattern. I’m almost finished. I think I’ll do one more “section of blocks” before I tuck it away. I still haven’t decided on who will receive this handcrafted item, but I’ll make sure the person actually wants something like this.

Since I used size 3 knitting needles, the stitches are tightly woven together and will do a great job blocking out the cold winds that might blow.

Adventures in Beekeeping: Honeybees (nurse bees) feeding the larvae; pollen

As mentioned in my earlier adventures in beekeeping posts, this morning, when I checked my Warre hive, I discovered larvae!  Here are a few of the photos that I took this morning.

The pictures are kind of blurry, my apologies for that. These were taken about 5:00 a.m., my bee photographer (ten year old daughter) was still asleep. The next time I check inside the hive, I’ll make sure my daughter takes pictures. It was challenging holding my Nikon D80 and maneuvering the bars to get a good picture.

Warre hive pollen and Nurse bees feed larvae
Nurse bees tending to larvae inside Warre hive

 

If you look closely, you might see the “white things”… those are the larvae.

Honeybees flocking around water droplets and pollen
Honeybees flocking around water droplets and pollen

 

In the above photo you see the honeybees slurping up some water and you’ll see that there is pollen (dark reddish brown/orange dots) scattered along the bars.

The second box is almost full of honey. I enjoy watching the honeybees. I’m usually not opening up their Warre hive. When I’m not taking apart the hive, on my visits I’ll squat beside and observe them without wearing a bee suit. Our honeybees are fairly docile, they go about their daily tasks and ignore me completely.

Adventures in Beekeeping: Bee Larvae

Earlier this morning, I realized that I hadn’t looked inside my hive since I went inside the Warre hive five days ago. Which is fine by me, I want the bees to do their own thing. I observe them daily, I’m just not inside their hive.

Since I know the queen has been busily laying eggs, I decided to check to see how they were faring. While opening up the top box of my Warre hive,  I noticed a large amount of honeybees inside the first box. They were nurse bee and they were busily tending to the larvae. Oh that’s a good sign! The nurse bees were milling about feeding the larvae. I must say it was quite fascinating to watch them.

I did notice that two combs (in the top box) were merged at the end and so I took a butter knife to gently pry them apart. I have pictures, I’ll try to post them later today.

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that the honeybees have found a great nectar source, so they have been ignoring the feeders.  I did add water to one of the feeders so they can have a steady supply of water, but I won’t be adding any more sugar water.

Angry Honeybees

While checking the comb I banged one of the bars that the comb is attached too. Whoops, sorry honeybees! Naturally they didn’t like that and I had a small swarm of highly pissed honeybees checking me out to see what the heck I was doing.  I was safe inside my bee suit, and after a bit of bouncing on my head and a few squirts from my spray bottle that contained water,  they were fine. They went about grooming themselves. I looked at them a bit more before closing up the Warre hive and trudging back to the house.

Fun Fact:  Did you know that the honeybee queen has a smooth stinger? Unlike the worker honeybees that have a barbed stinger, so they’ll die after they sting, she won’t die since her stinger is smooth. You might wonder why she’s different? The newly emerged queen kills other queens (by stinging them) before they come out of their queen cells. Remember, there’s normally only one queen per hive.

 

Edited to add: I’ve posted a few of the photos I took of our honeybees this morning.

Adventures in Beekeeping; Inside our Warre Hive

Since acquiring our honeybees, I check on them daily. I love watching them. I must say they add additional joy to my already sparkling days. Life is too short, to spend it grumbling/complaining. I make the most with what’s been given to me.

Bee watching is fascinating…

While it’s true that I have gleaned a lot of knowledge about honeybees from my years of research about them that experience is  completely different than actually having your own hives. Since introducing honeybees onto our property, my knowledge (and love) of these amazing creatures  has increased! I’m enjoying my adventures in beekeeping immensely.

Warre hive early morning activity_4.6.20.13
Warre hive; early morning activity

 

When I check out the honeybees, I rarely open up the beehive and I’m not always peeking into the observation window. I just like watching what they do.

Warre hive early morning activity_5.6.20.13
Warre hive early morning activity; working the comb

 

From my observations I’ve found that around 6:00 a.m., most of the honeybees are still inside the hive (for now).

Warre hive early morning activity_2.6.20.13

 

If you were to think they’re sleeping at that time, you would be wrong. As you can see they are fairly active with their inside hive duties.

 

Warre hive early morning activity_1.6.20.13

 

As the day progresses, you’ll see the foragers come outside the hive to gather nectar (some collect water) and I enjoy watching them return to the hive. The guard bees are at the entrance to greet them and make sure they actually belong to the hive.

It’s amazing watching a healthy and busy beehive.  And for me, it’s another sign of how truly awesome our God is.

Thanks to the added insect repelling plants and neem solution my daughter and I are able to sit outside and watch them without being bit!